tout le monde en parle

I'm having fun practicing reading French here... the FAQ section of the Tout Le Monde En Parle website.

It's a TV show in Quebec that has caught my eye from time to time... I only understand snippets of what they say, but the energy of the hosts and guests is entertaining nonetheless, and sometimes I recognize some of the guests.

Here's a sample letter from the section where the host answers audience letters:

7 novembre 2006
SUJET DU MESSAGE : Plus d'artistes connus

Je pense que vous n'invitez pas assez d’artistes connus.
Éric Brassard
Je pense que vous ne connaissez pas assez d’artistes.
André D.

OMFG. Pretty much, it goes:
Q: I think you don't have enough well-known artists on your show.
A: I don't think you know your artists well enough.

I wish I knew more French, but the French I do know is getting a fun workout.

more cat trouble

well I heard from the vet.
It's not thyroid, it's not kidney trouble, it's not diabetes.
So now what? He wants to xray or ultrasound the intestines to see if there's something blocking there.
Not to sound like a bad cat owner, but it's expensive already. I talked to a person at work, he said that he draws the line at a certain point money-wise, and also at any procedure that is invasive, that is likely to stress the animal out more than it adds to quality of life. I agree. He gave me some good ground to stand on, regarding when to say "no" to the vet people. So I think I will say yes to the ultrasound, but no to anything surgery. But then what's the point? If the exams show she's clearly gotta be in some pain, then I guess we can put her down, and if she doesn't seem to be in pain, then I guess let her be, and try to make her comfortable.
I feel terrible for her because there's nothing to do for her yet. I tried feeding her, putting canned food in her mouth, but she's not so enthusiastic about that, and I feel pretty futile. I'll try again tonight but meh.
It feels weird to have Heidi under the bed, and Deena snuggled up to me ON it. I miss having 2 kitties on the bed. :(

sick Heidi

My poor kitty is sick. She's 15 years old, I adopted her last year because her owner went into an nursing home. I have another one who is 6, I've had her for a number of years.
I came home yesterday and Heidi wasn't at the door - lately, when I put my key in the lock, I can hear her bell jingle almost right away. So I went looking for her, she was on my bed - usually she is waiting with Deena to be fed. But last night she was not interested in food, not even yummy canned food. She was a bit weak and slumpy.
Same story this morning, so I brought her into the vet's. I was in shock at the vet bill, but what can you do? As cats age, apparently they get either diabetes, kidney or thyroid problems, so they did a test for those. I thought she might have had a cold and have lost her appetite. I nuked some canned cat food and put it on her paw and cheek to see if I could get any of it in her. Since her last vet visit, she's gone from 8 lbs to 7, so I doubt it's just a cold at this point. My friend's cat died of kidney failure, his cat went real real skinny, poor thing. So I figure that she has something along the same lines. Cats can't talk, so I have to act for them, they are vulnerable.
Tonight I'm going to see if I can get some more food into her, or I might try baby food or milk or something.

The fire alarm went off in my building last night. I tried taking a cat with me, but to no avail... I didn't make a really good effort, because last time, the alarm was triggered by a problem with water in the elevator, so I figured chances were fairly low that it was a real fire.
I was right. On my way down, I saw indications that the alarm was pulled as part of someone's domestic dispute.
I have heard that women, in reaction to being abused, will do something that ends with themselves getting arrested. I don't know what the end result was, the fireman eventually shooed us back upstairs. I listened on my scanner, but I didn't hear anything.

more geekery

so... I'm getting somewhat proficient at morse code... well, better than I was a year ago. A year ago I ordered a 2 CD set of morse code lessons. Since then it's been kind of on and off... but recently I have plowed through it with more enthusiasm, and I know all the letters of the alphabet except for Q, Y, X, and Z. Well, I know Q and Y, but I keep mixing them up.
It's been a great thing for me recently, what with me having no social life whatsoever... it's a great distraction from that, better than eating in the Ikea cafeteria, or people-watching in Square One. It's a great thing to take your mind off of stuff, because, as daunting as it is, sooner or later, the more you listen to the CD, it actually starts to sink in, and you make progress.
Like, the milestone I have now reached, is while I'm walking from the GO train to work, I look at something around me, and I mentally spell out its name in morse code to myself, or I spell out things on street signs or whatever. It's fabulous, it's another language, and I have mostly learned it. The first day I did that easily, it was like a little breathless eureka moment and it was awesome.
And that's not all... I think I'm at around 5 words per minute, which is like 15 km/h. Slow. My next challenge will be to get practice MP3s on the net, which are rated at speeds up to around 40 wpm, which starts to sound like a human modem. If I can get 15 wpm, fabulous. That seems to be the higher level of ham radio license in canada anyhow, who cares about ever achieving 40 wpm. I will be happy if I can decipher the morse code automated IDs that the local repeaters beep out periodically during the day (on my scanner).
Morse code is geeky? Faaaahhhhhkkkk... who cares. I have a ham radio license anyhow to go with it. One of my favourite things about playing the piano was practising scales... same thing - enough repetition, the skills start to develop, and it's satisfying.
And! I am teaching one of my co-workers to knit. I started her off hard, with a 2x2 rib for a scarf. I figured, we're all grownups, why not? Flipping gears between knitting and purling is still messing her up, but she seems to be getting it all right. I'm showing her how to recover from mistakes too... as a kid, I learned one thing at a time, but as adults, we need lots of things to keep our interest level and motivation high.

sick still

I'm still sick. I had mostly gotten over my cold but a few late nights seem to have brought it back full strength.

However I'm making some progress learning morse code from my ARRL CDs. Not much else going on, so I'm focusing my attention on it, and it's paying off. I'm getting bored already with the speed of the morse code on the CD, so I edited the files a bit in Audacity, and sped up the morse code parts, because eventually I'll need to hear it faster anyhow.

heh heh

Today at work, it was fun, because on our break someone discovered that Hilarious House of Frightenstein is on during our break, on the Space channel or something. Aside from its camp Canadiana value, and the fact that it reaches quite back far into my youth, it was surreal to hear my Hamilton-area-dwelling co-workers discussing minutiae about where the show was taped and where Vincent Price stayed when he was working on the show. It's just a really funny show in a tenderly bizarre way, without even really REALLY trying.

Tonight I listened to Abba on my way home, and it was all I could do to not disco dance on the GO train.

sick

Most summers, for one or two days, I have to break out the Nasonex to keep my airways open enough to breathe. This summer I didn't get away without using it, though that 1 or 2 days seems to have happened in September. O.o I have a bad cold, usually this kind of thing is due to smog.

TGIF

Gah I'm sick today... I have a cold, one of those ones that makes you feel like you were hit with a truck. I took an advil one night because I can feel this pain from my jaw to my temples, and behind my ears - not sure if it's my TMJ + stress, or if it's sinus trouble. Today I didn't feel like eating much... for my before-the-news snack at work I had a strawberry freezy popsicle thing and some (wait for it) green iced tea. Nestea is my favourite - I don't know what they put in it, but crack isn't mentioned on the ingredients list. Thank god it's the weekend. I wanted to call in sick so bad, but I'll put them in a pickle at work, cause someone else is already off this week. I have a birthday thingie to go to tomorrow, I don't get out much so I do want to go, but I still feel like scheisse so I'm not sure.

some music goofing around

here is some music that I made last night.
It's 12 min of random piano playing... I think a summer of trying to wade through Ulysses, and buying a Brian Eno CD this week have taken its toll.

Seriously though, I heard a thing on Ideas about 4 years ago on the connection between brain waves and music, and since then I've been interested in the idea that music reflects the brainwaves of the person who made the music (more or less) and I believe that those brainwaves can then occur sympathetically in the brain of the listener. The researchers on that particular Ideas had somehow transmuted brainwave info into MIDI data controlling a keyboard... and it sounded like relaxed improvisation, with chords - it made sense musically. So after I heard Thursday Afternoon, (well some of it) I thought if Brian Eno can make 60 min of the same chords, lemme see what I can do. However the material on that MP3 is not relaxed LOL

outlaw inlaws

My sister and her husband have picked out maybe 3 Irish names for their impending offspring. However, after hearing the names, at the shower, a Greek chorus of inlaw aunts were hollering "how about something we can spell?" Ummm, we've had to spell our last name constantly, forever, so try again, let's hear a real reason? Our own first names aren't Irish, but I have to constantly spell my first name too, so meh. If I need to give my last name for something official, I don't bother pronouncing it, I skip right to just spelling it out. For unofficial things, I don't care if they spell or pronounce it wrong. I only have so much time in the day, right? In any case, these aunties have proven that it's better for everyone to find out the name after it's on the birth certificate.

back home from the rock

Well I am home now from Newfoundland. It was truly surreal. After growing up without many close relatives nearby, it was weird to spend time on a road in which everyone was related to me, except for 2 families. !!!!! There was fabulous scenery as well. here are some pics

I saw Little Miss Sunshine. Not a film for the kiddies, lots of cussing and drug use, but it was very very good.

fun on the rock

I'm in Newfoundland, on the avalon peninsula, in the Land of the Unnanounced Visit. I'm listening to CBC Radio One, either the Hali feed on Expressvu, or scratch AM radio form St. John's. It's unbelievably beautiful here. I'm related to almost everyone on the road I'm staying at. There is no gas station in this settlement. I picked blueberries randomly while on a walk today. Messenger is going nuts on this computer I'm on... I have no internet connection where I'm staying. I'm taking about 50 photos a day... I can see the ocean from the kitchen window. :D

I'm still trying to read Ulysses. It's gonna be a hard slog through it. I was starting to like the Erica Jong book a bit better. I also have a couple of Gabriel Garcia Marques books I'm starting on.

rock info update

So I talked to my mom.

She is going to show me around St. John's. Good. No arm-twisting, she seems happy to do that. Yay! However I was advised to bring both winter and summer pyjamas. And not just fall stuff, still bring shorts & summery tops. Hmm! In my rapidly filling, brand-new, funky-coloured, carry-on-sized turning-out-to-be-not-quite-big-enough suitcase, I think I will have to rearrange. There is no DVD player available, at least they haven't been able to hook it up, so I may have to call my film & TV education into play when I get there, but not sure still if I should bring my King of the Hill and Office DVDs.

I made an intriguing discovery. Apparently, any area of Newfoundland that is NOT coastline, is pretty much uninhabited. Google maps, sattelite view, kind of bears that out. On teh Avalon Peninsula, one highway weaves close to the shore... that's it. Otherwise wilderness. *gets excited* My mom is funny though. I asked her if people go out into that wilderness at all, etc., they go for walks, but only as far as they can go without having to pee. LOL

Another bit of bizarre info, apparently the local mass is a half hour... LOLOL standard length of time of a Catholic mass as far as I know, is an hour. Well, all the more time on a Sunday to pick blueberries. 3 more sleeps

Four more sleeps till I fly to Newfoundland. I was cutting and pasting from Google maps, to make myself a map of the area I'll be in, and I'm looking into what radio stations I'll be able to get there. Hmph! There seems to be no terrestrial CBC television reception in that area... I think my parents have a dish. We had a half day at work... I had lunch with some co-workers after, and it was fun. I mean it was more than fun, it was good to reconnect with them - I've been a bit grouchy for the past several months, I think I reconnected with myself today as well. I'm doing laundry & doing a trial run of packing my suitcase. I got a carry on size one because I thought I was all low maintenance, but it'll be tight packing 2 weeks worth of stuff in it, it looked big enough, but I think it's smaller than my deteriorating backpack. I don't know how to dress there, because it's stinking hot in Toronto, but I'm sure it'll be cooler there, don't know just how cool. Now that I'm used to the heat, I don't want to sit around being chilly.

I go on vacation in less than a week. I am freaking out already at the thought of bringing my cats to the vet to be boarded. One hates the car. The other I only got last fall and I don't know how she behaves in the car. Just the thought of a chorus of tortured-sounding meows from the back seat of a car makes me a little sick to my stomach. I am going to Newfoundland where my mom is from. I haven't been there in 20 years, so I'm all ready to see some relatives I won't recognize. I am not entirely convinced about the goodness of this trip. I hope it's not something that I should have listened to my intuition about. O.o

day for night

I made a neato discovery... Day for Night on Bryan Ferry's Bete Noire CD. I liked his music from hearing it on CFNY way back when but I didn't buy it till recently. I didn't start listening to it till I got an MP3 player program on my computer. Anyhow, I'm having fun learning it on my acoustic. To make my life easier, I tuned down a whole step so I could play the Dm in Em fingerings. I had to decode some of the chords on the piano first. Some of the chord progressions remind me of When Smokey Sings.

back to school?

My knee is still painful, and I'm thinking it's not just the skin but some bruising or damage to what's underneath. Much of my weight came down on it when I fell. :[ I was poking around the skin that is not damaged, to see what parts still hurt. I can't bend my knee all the way, but I'm trying to keep everything moving. When I cut my finger (3mm deep) it took A LONG time to get back normal feeling & movement after the skin healed, so I know it can just be a waiting game.

I'm looking into taking some art courses at Humber. They are to trowel over the gaps left between my art history draw-your-dreams university education, and what would have been a better choice, graphic design. I mean, I did SOME design courses at university, but they... I dunno, in the senior years I did photography and sculpture, not anything that makes me confident for designing an ad, which would be the optimal goal of what I would need for a more senior position at work. Had I studied typography and graphic design at university past the year 1 or 2 level, yeah, I might have been more confident with things.

So... I've picked a little certificate program at Humber. I wanted to just take 2 courses, but the more I look at it, all 6 would be useful. HOWEVER some are prerequisites for the others. Yikes! My sup had indicated that Rogers would pay for an upgrade course for me, but for 6? And if one is in drawing with pen and ink, heh that doesn't relate to my job very much. :/ So I emailed someone at the college, and, thinking I could be exempt from computer basics (Illustrator, Photoshop & Quark) and drawing (did that at University, but thought, hey, a refresher course would be fun), the reply was that since the last formal courses I took in Illustrator and Quark was 9 years ago, she said I should likely take that course... sigh... I have visions of myself helping people with creating mattes and using the pen tool during the class. :[ But she said that with a portfolio or transcript, I could be exempt from the drawing. I mean, I can draw with 3 point perspective, but my drawing instruction was quite literally "draw your dreams" at university and I wouldn't mind brushing up those skills in a more graphic arts sense. In any case, the thought of making a portfolio has me thinking of all the things I could put in it, ie drawings of everyday objects, supplies I want to buy, etc. :D :D :D I'm getting excited about drawing again. The only drawing I do is the occasional doodling - the only reason I want to draw is to show them off to be critiqued in front of a class, to show off my drawing-fu.

first post

Hello world!